rty-five he became--as he himself expressed
it--an abject slave, and he would as soon have tried to steer in a
slipper bath, right in the teeth of an equinoctial hurricane, as have
opposed the will of his wife. He used to sigh gruffly when spoken to on
this subject, and compare himself to a Dutch galliot that made more
lee-way than head-way, even with a wind on the quarter. "Once," he
would remark, "I was clipper-built and could sail right in the wind's
eye, but ever since I tuck this craft in tow I've gone to leeward like a
tub. In fact, I find there's only one way of going ahead with my Poll,
and that is right before the wind! I used to yaw about a good deal at
first, but she tuck that out o' me in a day or two. If I put the helm
only so much as one stroke to starboard, she guv' a tug at the tow-rope
that brought the wind dead aft again; so I've gi'n it up, and lashed the
tiller right amidships."

So Buzzby did not accompany his old commander; he did not even so much
as suggest the possibility of it, but he shook his head with great
solemnity as he stood with Fred, and Mrs Bright, and Isobel, at the end
of the pier, gazing at the brig, with one eye very much screwed up, and
a wistful expression in the other, while the graceful craft spread out
her canvas and bent over to the breeze.

CHAPTER TWO.

DEPARTURE OF THE POLE STAR FOR THE FROZEN SEAS--SAGE REFLECTIONS OF MRS.
BRIGHT, AND SAGACIOUS REMARKS OF BUZZBY--ANXIETIES, FEARS, SURMISES, AND
RESOLUTIONS--ISOBEL--A SEARCH PROPOSED--DEPARTURE OF THE DOLPHIN FOR THE
FAR NORTH.

Digressions are bad at the best, and we feel some regret that we should
have been compelled to begin our book with one; but they are necessary
evils, sometimes, so we must ask our reader's forgiveness, and beg him,
or her, to remember that we are still at the commencement of our story,
standing at the end of the pier, and watching the departure of the _Pole
Star_ whale-ship, which is now a scarcely distinguishable speck on the
horizon.

As it disappeared Buzzby gave a grunt, Fred and Isobel uttered a sigh in
unison, and Mrs Bright resumed the fit of weeping which for some time
she had unconsciously suspended.

"I fear we shall never see him again," sobbed Mrs Bright, as she took
Isobel by the hand and sauntered slowly home, accompanied by Fred and
Buzzby, the latter of whom seemed to regard himself in the light of a
shaggy Newfoundland or mastiff, who had been left to protect the fa